Knight Letter No. 52

Kniorht Letter

THE LEWIS CARROLL

SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA NUMBER 52 SPRING 1 996

City of Brotherly Love Hosts Spring Meeting

The Spring meeting of the Society was a moveable
feast in and around Philadelphia, which was looking excep-
tionally verdant this cool and sunny spring day. Our first
stop was the remarkable Rosenbach Museum and Library.

The Rosenbach collection is housed in a spectacu-
lar Civil- War period mansion, the former home of Dr. A.S. W.
Rosenbach, the justifiably famous rare book and manuscript
dealer. Today it is a research library and museum, open both
to scholars and the public. There is no way to do justice to a
description of their collection which, in addition to its works
on paper, houses English and American furniture (such as
Melville's bookcase and Marianne Moore's entire apartment),
silver, paintings, and decorative art. There is so much among
the thirty-thousand books and manuscripts that just to list a
few of the "genuflect quality" items must suffice: the (al-
most) complete handwritten manuscript of Ulysses; working
drafts of Shakespeare's plays; manuscript notes and out-
lines for Dracula; a copy of Moby Dick presented to
Hawthorne (the book's dedicatee); Jefferson's copy of this,
Napoleon's copy of that.

We were welcomed in the garden by Joan Watson,
Director of Public Programs, who gave us an orientation talk,
split us into two groups, and turned us over to a pair of
knowledgeable and friendly
librarians for a tour.

Their Carroll holdings
are vast and of supreme impor-
tance (remember it was Dr.
Rosenbach who purchased the
original manuscript of Alice 's
Adventures Underground and
returned it to the British Mu-
seum). A few items were set out
to whet our appetites, including
Tenniel's pencil sketches for the
Jabberwock and Caucus Race.
In the latter, the ape which ap-
pears in the final drawing was
mysteriously absent - was it
added later as a dig at Darwin?
Also a (reproduced binding)
white vellum presentation copy
of the 1 865 Alice inscribed to
"MAB" (Marion Terry) with a
preferatory poem; a few of their
thirty letters to and from Arthur

B. Frost with Carroll's preliminary sketches of the ghost in
Phantasmagoria together with Frost's pencils and final etch-
ings; and an unpublished magazine from Carroll's youth open
to a drawing entitled "The Great Cow- Eater" about an angry
bull's charge (prefiguring the current Mad Cow scare in En-
gland?), and a handbill from the 1 889 Saville-Clarke produc-
tion among other treasures.

The officers of the Society then met for an hour and
discussed upcoming meeting sites and the constitution which
was unanimously approved in the general meeting. Its text
appears on page 6 of this issue.

A big yellow school bus took us to the next venue,
the Germantown Theatre Guild (founded in 1 933) and located
in the carriage house of the Mehl House, built in 1 742, and of
great historical interest - both housing Hessian mercenaries
in the Revolutionary War (Battle of Germantown, 1 777) and
with underground tunnels believed to have been links in the
Underground Railway of the Civil War. We were served lunch,
and were free to wander through the house and theater, both
of which had exhibits from the collections of Kitty Minehart
(Artistic Director of the Theatre) and Barabara Felicetti, who
collects "Alice in the Popular Culture" ephemera. There was
even an Alice Bathroom.

The theatre Guild has presented many hundreds of
plays over the years, including
Alice in Wonderland and
Through the Looking-Glass five
times. We walked in and sat
among the audience already
seated there (Humpty Dumpty
and some Victorian theater-
goers). Eve LaGalliene's
"director's script" for the 1932
production was reverently
housed in glass. Costumes from
previous productions loomed
about, as did a Christmas tree
with Alician ornaments and a
larger-than-life-sized Mock
Turtle and Red Queen. We sat
under the beamed ceilings in
musty pews, breathing history.
Our keynote speaker,
Alexei Panshin, is a respected
author of science fiction, and has
won the Nebula Award in 1 989, a

Hugo in the same year (for Right of Passage) and a World
Science Fiction Award in 1 99 1 . He is currently working on a
book on the creative imagination which devotes several chap-
ters to Lewis Carroll, and his talk was entitled "Falling Down
a Rabbit Hole". Beginning with a discussion of the places
where "sci/fi" and fantasy coincide, from early writers up
through Robert Heinlein's Number of the Beast, wherein a
Klein bottle (Carroll's "Purse of Fortunatus") led into the
"abyss of wonder", Mr. Panshin offered a deconstruction of
the Thames expedition and the first few chapters of Alice,
included speculation on: Carroll's identification with the
young Alice as his surrogate self; the six dream layers of the
narrative; fairy-tales and magic; and comparisons with Alice's
fall down the rabbit hole to Verne's Journey to the Center of
the Earth. It was a definitely "Sixties" perspective, with talks
of altered perceptions, head states, lucid dreaming, and so
on. The material was admittedly not arranged as a lecture (a
courtesy speakers might well be asked to observe), and could
have used some serious editing. Or perhaps he was intend-
ing, as someone remarked, to illustrate the "dream state" by
putting us into one.

This was followed by a fine reenactment of "The
Wasp in the Wig", certainly well within, and at times exceed-
ing, "the appliances of art". The nasty, crass working-class
Wasp was delightfully portrayed by Mark Hallen, and Alice
by the young and talented Laura Filosa, all under the direc-
tion of Kitty Minehart. This humorous interlude woke us all
back up.

A panel discussion "Your Collection's Future: Down
the Rabbit-Hole. ..and into the Basement?" ensued, moder-
ated by Barbara Felicetti. The four panelists were experts in
four related areas and discussed considerations regarding
the sale, donation, or bequest of a collection.

The first speaker was Daniel Traister, Curator of the
Department of Special Collections of the VanPelt-Dietrich
Library of the University of Pennsylvania. Dan, a very funny
and enlightening speaker, represented, obviously, the library
culture. He had several salient points: one, that the dispersal
of a collections is an idiosyncratic and very personal matter
- do you need to keep it intact? is it your "monument to your
own immortality"? Do you wish others to enjoy it? How?
Does it have instructional/research or just sentimental value?
and stressed the need for a "brutally realistic" appraisal of
your assets and your own feelings about them. Second, that
the dispersal of a collection is a two-way street, and that one
must be sure the recipient is empowered to, and interested in,
receipt. If it is to a library or other institution, have you also
included sufficient funds to house it, catalog it, care for it,
protect it, insure it, staff it, provide for present curatorial
needs and future growth? Is it an unconditional gift that an
institution can itself disperse? A "gift" can truly be a horrible
burden to the recipient if these things are not considered.

Next we heard from John F. Warren, a Philadelphia
appraiser and dealer in art books and fine prints. If you are
going to sell your collection through a dealer, how does one
choose among the five thousand used and antiquarian book
dealers and twelve auction houses? How to find someone

professional, knowledgeable, and who shares your passion
for these books? He suggests inquiring through fellow col-
lectors or librarians and choosing someone who specializes
in the field you collect. Ask to see their catalog. Be clear as to
what you are selling (physically segregating the "Not for
Sale"). The cost of third-party appraisals is usually warranted.
Is it a sale? a consignment? Make sure everything is in writ-
ing. He advised us to solicit competing offers from two or
three dealers.

George M. Riter, Esq., an estate planning attorney,
next discussed a third alternative - charitable gifts and trusts.
If you are planning to leave the collection to a charitable
organization, first and foremost make certain that they want
to receive it. Are they qualified? Obtain written acknowledg-
ment. Filing a gift tax return (with third-party appraisal) may
require a qualified advisor. Remember, pledges are unenforce-
able {i.e. do not just leave it to some charity without their full
knowledge and consent). If you are looking to leave it to a
family member (again, who wants it and understands the
burdens it implies), the best plan is to do it throughout your
life, as the IRS allows up to ten thousand dollars a year to be
transferred tax-free. Otherwise, the assets will be taxed at
55%.

The fourth alternative, having a collection sold by
an auction house, was discussed by Kimball Higgs, Assis-
tant Vice President of Sotheby's Books and Manuscripts
Division. Although collecting is "for the heart, not for profit"
there may come a time when one wishes maximum return on
investment. Sotheby's may be the proper route for "high-
end" material - no book (or lot) is sold for under $1 ,500. You
are also charged for storage, insurance, advertising, and com-
mission so only a select few items may be worth it - those
handling charges are often around $600 per item. So if you're
hoarding a bejewelled 1 865 white vellum presentation Alice
with Tenniel sketches which have been hand-watercolored
by Alice Hargreaves, fine, but they are not the avenue for
your eighty-five variants of Grosset & Dunlaps.

At the end, a handout, "Alice's Last Adventure",
was available. Barbara Felicetti (address in Letters section)
may have some more copies. It includes outlines of the above
talks, addresses of the participants, and a list of libraries with
Lewis Carroll collections.

A lively question-and-answer period followed, with
inquiries on provenance (and confidentiality); dual standards
of valuation (it is not unusual nor unethical for the "fair mar-
ket value" to fluctuate depending on whether the collection
is being insured, going to charity, being sold, etc.) It was also
noted that our Society has no permanent home, and, even if
a collection were to be offered, would have no way of hous-
ing it.

At the end of the meeting, Janet Jurist received some
presents and our heartfelt thanks for serving as Program
Coordinator for so many years. We also thanked Barbara
Felicetti for her warm hospitality, shmoozed a bit, andheaded
back for the Rosenbach in the big yellow school bus, where
Sandor and Joel led the singing of "Ninety Nine Bottles of
Drink-Me on the Wall" all the way back. Just kidding.

Ravings from the Writing Desk
of Joel Birenbaum

Taking my lead from politics, I will indulge in a posi-
tive (as opposed to a negative) rave this issue. This month I
initiated a separate Lewis Carroll Society of North America
Home Page on the World Wide Web [seep. 12 for addresses].
While I am at it I might as well mention that the Lewis Carroll
Society (UK) also has a new home page: http://
ourworld . CompuServe . com/homepages/ Aztec/LC S . htm . The
LCSNA board is investigating a permanent home for our Web
presence. The page currently contains a description of the
society, a list of officers, membership information, a few origi-
nal articles, and a few odd bits of Carroll data. My belief is
that the page should expand on what is known in the commu-
nications arena as "content". For those who remember the
old Wendy's commercial, this is "the beef. The LCSNA
should not merely be the keeper of pointers to other people's
information; we should be the source of information. To this
end I am requesting contributions for our page. These can
be original articles, HTML versions of Carroll texts not yet
on the web, original graphics, or digitized photos of Carroll-
related sites [real ones, not virtual].

The Lewis Carroll Home Page (which is the home
for pointers to other people's Carroll information) was rated
in the top 5% of Web sites by Pointcom. Joshua Birenbaum,
the webmaster of this site, added a counter to the page this
month and we found that the page was accessed over 100
times per day. The link to the LCSNA page should provide us
with a similar number of accesses. This is a better opportu-
nity to reach more of the public then we have ever had. It
behooves us to give a good indication of what we are about.
While this may or may not increase our membership, it will
definitely increase our exposure. We can bring Carroll schol-
arship, Carroll texts, Carroll photographs, and even a bit of
Carroll trivia to more than a hundred people a day.

To date I have received electronic mail comments
from information highway travelers in Canada, Mexico, Ven-
ezuela, Russia, Finland, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, Swe-
den, Germany, France, Australia, the UK, and the US. The
feedback has been 100% positive and in many cases posi-
tively gushing. This is a Lewis Carroll lifeline for many people.
The more interesting information we can provide, the more
people will visit more often. If we build it, they will come.
Odds Bodkins by Dan O'Neill, June 4, 1969

The most often asked specific question is: what is
the answer to the Hatter's riddle, "Why is a Raven like a
writing desk?" Fortunately there are deeper questions posed
than that. The most general question asked is of the form, "I
am writing a report on Lewis Carroll, what can you send me?"
My general reply is, "I can send you to the library." If the
question is more specific, I refer them to a short list of refer-
ence material. The key is to make sure they have made some
attempt on their own to find the information and don't expect
me to research their report for them. The good news about
this is that many High School and College students are still
choosing to do their projects on the subject of Lewis Carroll.
Isn't that where most of us started?

In my opening rave I mentioned that I might be re-
porting information from the Lewis Carroll Society (UK) Com-
mittee meeting. Well, on November 24th, I attended my first
LCS Committee meeting via speakerphone. I would have pre-
ferred to attend in person, but unfortunately this does not fit
in either society's budget (and certainly not my own). We
discussed publications in progress and their distribution,
but here is a question that I was asked to relay: Are you
planning a vacation in the UK, or perhaps a business trip?
Our friends in the Lewis Carroll Society (UK) would love to
know when visitors from the LCSNA might be in town. Per-
haps they could arrange for you to attend one of their meet-
ings (they have about 10 a year). If they know in advance,
they may even ask you to speak at a meeting (with so many
meetings a year a new voice is always welcome). This invita-
tion is a chance for a bit more cross-pollination between our
two Societies.

The LCS is planning a three day seminar in Guilford
the first weekend in August of 1 996. This will be their annual
summer outing. The seminars will lean heavily towards the
arts I am told [see page 7]. Now you can plan your "busi-
ness trip" accordingly.

Now let's switch gears and talk about LCSNA meet-
ings. First I would like to thank Kitty Minehart, Barbara
Felicetti and their crew for all the hard work they put in to
making our meeting in Philadelphia a great success. They
were particularly thoughtful in arranging for beautiful weather,
so that we could eat in Kitty's garden. The friendly Carrollian
atmosphere was instrumental in enabling members to gather

in small groups to engage in lively discussion.

Our next meeting will be in Providence RI on No-
vember 9th. Professor Sherry Ackerman will speak on Sylvie
and Bruno and Professor George Landow on the "Victorian
Web" and will also give a demonstration of the World Wide
Web emphasizing Lewis Carroll's presence. I would like to
point out that Providence is a short drive from Boston and a
reasonable trip from New York. I would anticipate a good
turnout at this, our Fall '96 meeting. Plan to stay a few days
and visit the surrounding area.

Future meetings will be as follows: Spring '97 in
New York City; Fall '97 is still up for grabs (but may be in
conjunction with a seminar on creative thinking being held at
St. John's University in Collegeville MN); Spring '98 in New
York City; and Fall '98 in Southern California. The Spring '98
meeting will probably be in late February, so technically it
will be a Winter meeting. Yes, we have a good reason for
holding the meeting in February. No, it is not the weather.
January 1 4, 1 998 will be the centenary of Carroll's death and
there will be several exhibits and associated events in New
York in February. It promises to be a great two-day meeting
(the exact dates are not yet set). I suggest you set aside a
weekend for this super-meeting.

Congratulations to Joel and his son
Joshua for maintaining one of the
most fascinating and popular sites on
the World Wide Web. The Lewis
Carroll Home Page has been awarded
two marks of distinction: the "4-Star"
from Magellan as one of the "best
resources on the Net in terms of
depth of content, ease of explora-
tion and Net appeal" and the "Top
5%" by Point Survey, described as
"a catalog of the most lively, useful,
and fun sites on the Net."

The Fall elections for our Officers is coming up. All
of the current officers are willing to serve again, except for
our Vice-President, Rosella Howe, who cannot take on the
additional responsibilities for personal reasons. Please send
your nominations to any officer or member of the nominating
committee, for example Dr. Sandor Burstein at 1 20 Sea Cliff
Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94121 .

Leaves from the Deanery Garden

I would appreciate copies of any photos taken at the April
27th meeting of the LCSNA at my home and theatre and will
be glad to reimburse cost. Thank you! Please send them to:

Kitty Minehart

482 1 Germantown Ave.

Philadelphia PA 19144

I thought your readers might enjoy knowing my cars' Illinois
license plate numbers - BOOJUM 8 and SNARK 42. The 8 is
for the number of fits in the Snark.

Fred Ost
SkokielL

I've just returned from the Modern Language Association in
Chicago, the annual meeting of between 8,000 to 1 0,000 col-
lege and university teachers of literature and languages which
is the closest approximation to the Mad Tea Party that I have
ever encountered.

During the festivities, I clipped the enclosed article about the
conference from the 29 Dec. 1995 Chicago Sun-Times that I
thought might merit a brief mention. In the article, Phyllis
Franklin, the executive director of MLA, singles out Lewis
Carroll's Alice in Wonderland as an example of the sort of
book that transcends the virtues of electronic publishing.
Franklin sees Wonderland as the kind of book that parents
want to preserve in book form to give to their children. It's
refreshing to see that Franklin, as head of the MLA, situate
Wonderland at the heart of literary cultures. Maybe she has
been reading Morton Cohen's Lewis Carroll: A Biography?

Janet Susina
Dept. of English
College of Arts & Sciences
Illinois State University
Normal, IL

[The article "Little Being Done to Save Books From 'Dis-
appearing'" decries the estimated 100 million books on
library shelves which will become unusable over the next
twenty or thirty years, due to the acid content of the paper
on which they were printed, according to Professor J. Miller,
chairman of the MLA s Committee on the Preservation of
the Print Records. In a statement warning against public
complacency about book preservation in the face of the
computer revolution and the reliance on "virtual librar-
ies ", Ms. Franklin made the remark that "Parents still want
their children to know what (the book) Alice in Wonder-
land looked like. "]

[Silver State Fine Art mailed to LCSNA members a solicita-
tion/or a "master serigraph " by Jett Jackson a few months
back. One of our members shares her thoughts:]

I do not understand nor approve of presenting our 7V4 year
old Alice as an adult woman with a low-cut gown revealing
her bosom, and wearing nail polish. I also find repellent the
presentation of the Cheshire cat as a cross-eyed monster
with missing teeth and
weird stripes. It makes me
question as to whether
Jett Jackson has ever read
Alice in Wonderland. Per-
sonally, I find absolutely
nothing I like in the pic-
ture. Notice, for example,
how Alice is wrenching
the poor rabbit's hind leg
in her left hand! I hope I'm
not the only one who dis-
likes it.

[I could not agree more. I
find the interpretation ex-
ploitative, the execution
amateurish and the whole
thing ridiculously valued
($2500 is asked, about
ten times what most such
works sell for). However,
there is such a thing as
"artistic license " and the
free market and this was
advertised, after all, as
"bar art " so de gustibus
and all that.]

from you, and will appreciate any input. We all contain
"multicultural" multitudes.

Pascale Renaud

1 1 bis rue du Val de Grace

75005 Paris, France

prenaud@orbital.fr

[The article M. Renaud is referring to is "To Stop a
Bandersnatch, " my humorous look at the hermeneutic stud-
ies of Alice which can be found at the LCSNA website. I
have offered him the names of Professor Lecercle at the Uni-
versity of Paris at Nanterre and our own Genevieve Brauet-

Smith. Anyone who can
direct him further is en-
couraged to write to him.]

An ad for Bartlett s Famil-
iar Quotations: Ex-
panded Multimedia Edi-
tion in the New York Times
(1/29/96) among other
places contained a "Quote
of the Week", this time
"'What is the use of a
book,' thought Alice,
'Without pictures or con-
versation?'" For an "au-
thoritative" source to in-
dulge in a misquotation
(with three errors!) is
unforgivable. August
Imholtz brought this to
their (and our) attention.

As a French student in Paris in a pre-doctoral program, I
appreciated your article "Bandersnatch" a great deal. My
thesis subject is "The Reception of Lewis Carroll in France".
My main source is Jean Gattegno's works; hence my ques-
tion: are there any specific French sources used by the
LCSNA, and would you like a contribution on the subject, if
I may offer mine?

I am looking for feedback on the subject at the moment.
Carrollian studies are growing in France, and the translation
issue is especially important. I am looking forward to hearing

In Memoriam

It is my sad duty to inform you that Ellis
Hillman, founder and president of the Lewis
Carroll Society (Great Britain) has passed
away. I only met him for the first time last
year in Lyndhurst and found him to be quite
the conversationalist. I was looking forward
to seeing him again. - Joel Birenbaum

Constitution

1 . The Society shall be called the "Lewis Carroll Society of
North America."

2. The purpose of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America
is to encourage study in the life, work, times and influence of
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).

3. The Society shall be an autonomous entity. The North
American Society will endeavor to have a cooperative rein-
forcing relationship with the British Lewis Carroll Society.

4. Membership of the Society shall be open to any person or
institution who pays the required annual membership dues.
Types of membership and annual dues shall be specified in
the By-Laws.

5. The elected officers of the Society shall be a President, a
Vice President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. A Program Chair-
man and a Publications Chairman shall be appointed by the
officers.

6. The normal term of officers shall be two years.

7. A governing Board will consist of the officers, four elected
directors, the previous two officeholders from each office,
and two directors appointed by the president. The board will
be responsible for the financial affairs of the Society, and for
the annual audit of accounts. The President shall be Chair-
man of meetings of the Board.

8. Every two years, the Board shall appoint a Nominating
Committee to recommend candidates for the offices of the
Society.

9. A board of advisors will consist of all previous officehold-
ers not currently on the board of directors plus any other
advisors appointed by the Board of Directors.

10. The two boards will meet simultaneously, but only the
governing board will have voting privileges.

1 1 . There will be at least an annual meeting of the Society at
a time and place determined by the Board. Other meetings
may also be convened. Regional societies should be encour-
aged to organize and hold regional meetings. Membership in
the Society, however, will be required of all members of re-
gional societies.

12. A quorum at any meeting shall consist of 25 members.

13. The proceedings of the Society shall be governed by and
conducted according to the latest edition of Robert 's Rules
of Order, when not in conflict with Dodgson's Principles of
Parliamentary Representation.

14. The By-Laws can be amended by two-thirds of those
members present at a meeting, or by a majority of the total
membership.

15. The Constitution can be amended by three-quarters of
those members present at a meeting, or by two-thirds of the
total membership.

16. In the event of the dissolution of the Society, its assets
shall be donated to a children's hospital.

1 7. The official map of the Society shall be a perfect and
absolute blank.

By-Laws

There shall be three classes of membership: Regular Mem-
bers, Sustaining Members, and Honorary Members. Honor-
ary Members shall be nominated with the approval of the
governing Board. All members shall be entitled to vote at
meetings.

Dues

The annual dues for Regular Members shall be $20. The an-
nual dues for Sustaining Members shall be $50. Membership
shall be for the current year except that persons joining after
October 1 shall be members for the following year. Payment
of the dues shall entitle members to receive the Society news-
letter for one calendar year.

Guildford Study Weekend

August 2nd -4th, 1996

For many years, the Lewis Carroll Society (UK) has
been organising summer events which take its members to
places of Carrollian significance. Recently, these events have
included an overnight stay and have often been accompa-
nied by talks and other entertainment. This year, the Society
has chosen to return to Guildford [in Surrey, about an hour 's
drive southwest from London] for the first time in more than
ten years and has put together a packed programme of activi-
ties.

The weekend will feature lectures, discussion peri-
ods, tours and other activities. We have called this event a

continued

Serendipity

Robert Hughes (September, 1965): What scenes
would (you) like to have filmed?

Vladimir Nabokov: Shakespeare in the part of
the King's ghost. The beheading of Louis the
Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the
scaffold. Herman Melville at breakfast, feeding a
sardine to his cat. Poe's wedding. Lewis Carroll's
picnics.

A
Paul Sufrin (September, 1 97 1 ): In many of your

writings, you have conceived what I consider to
be an Alice-in- Wonderland world of unreality and
illusion. What is the connection with your real
struggle with the world?

VN: Alice in Wonderland is a specific book by a
definite author with its own quaintness, its own
quirks, its own quiddity. If read very carefully, it
will seem to imply, by humorous juxtaposition,
the presence of a quite solid, and rather senti-
mental, world, behind the semi-detached dream.
Moreover, Lewis Carroll liked little girls. I don't.

fa
From Strong Opinions, McGraw-Hill, 1973

study weekend, in order to emphasise the educational aspect
of the programme and have chosen two memes for the occa-
sion.

The first of the themes, and the subject of the first
day of the event, will be the Dodgson family connection with
the town of Guildford. The second theme will be an examina-
tion of Charles Dodgson's interest in various aspects of the
arts.

The weekend will be offered as a comprehensive
package which will include accommodation (arranged at the
University of Guildford), meals, use of all facilities, all trans-
port (from arrival in Guildford), course materials and various
keepsakes.

Lectures include "The Dodgson Family and its Con-

Califwocky

[The following bit was inspired by a Jit of jealousy over
Jersey- wocky. All italicized words are guaranteed to be
genuine towns and cities in California.]

'Twas Gridley and the Redwood Groves
Did Gerber and Gilroy in Half Moon Bay

All Quincy were the Orange Coves
And the Pomona Tqfts L.A.

Beware the Califwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that reach

Beware the Azusa bird and shun
The Petalumaious Pismo Beach.

He gripped his Ferndale sword in hand
Long time the Buttonwillow he sought

So rested he in Mill Valley
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in Red Blujfish thought he stood

The Califwock with eyes of flame
Came Whittier through the Tehachapi woods

And Burbanked as it came.

San Juan, San Bruno and through and through

His Yorba Linda went Riverbank
He left it dead and with its head

He went Humptulips back

And hast thou slain the Califwock?

Come to my arms my Beaumont boy
O Happy Camp! Coalinga! Ojai!

He Chowchillaed in his joy.

'Twas Gridley and the Redwood Groves
Did Gerber and Gilroy in Half Moon Bay

All Quincy were the Orange Coves
And the Pomona Tafts L.A.

nections with Guildford", "Carroll and the Pre-Rafaelites",
"Gertrude Thompson", "Carroll's Theatre-Going", "Carroll
and Ellen Terry", and "Carroll as Photographer". Evenings
will be taken with various entertainments. There will be visits
to the Watts Gallery, the Muniment Room and its extensive
Carroll holdings, St. Mary's Church and other schools where
he gave lessons, the Watts Gallery, and, of course, the graves
of Carroll, his sisters, and Aunt Lucy.

The fully inclusive price is £150 per person. Con-
tact Mark Richards, Treasurer, at 50 Lauderdale Mansions,
Lauderdale Road, London W9 1NE, England. A deposit of
£50, made out to the Lewis Carroll Society, will hold a reser-
vation, and they ask you to contact them by the end of May
[i.e. as soon as you possibly can!].

The Jabberwock

The illustration below is © 1 996 by Leslie Allen, a gracious
and talented Mill Valley, California, artist, and was executed
on scratchboard as a special commission for this Knight
Letter, continuing her series of "Memorandum" in issue 49
and "Humpty Dumpty" in 51.

(©jf 1B<b<b$£ &

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, British author
Jeff Noon {Pollen, Vuri) is writing a book called Automated
Alice, due this fall, portraying "a gun-toting, armor-plated
Alice in Wonderland... I just had to go with it after I had a
vision of an Alice with a door in her stomach that opens up
to shoot the Jabberwock," Noon said in an interview with the
San Francisco Chronicle, "I imagined her shooting him and
then saying something stupid like 'Eat lead.'"

The Tale of the Mouse 's Tail by LCSNA President-emeritus
David and Secretary-emeritus Maxine Schaefer, illustrated
by member Jonathan Dixon, ISBN 0-9648692. "You've done a
great job on the mouse's tail. It couldn't have been done
better or more amusingly" - Martin Gardner. The tale from
Alice s Adventures in Wonderland told by the mouse slowly
grows into a tail that assumes many different forms including
foreign languages and inside-out computer generated ver-
sions. The cleverly illustrated book is meant for anyone who
can read, even if they have never heard of Lewis Carroll.
Children from the third grade on up and adults will enjoy the
book. $9.95 including postage, from Mica Publishers, 617
Rockford Road, Silver Spring MD 20902.

Fantastic Alice, edited by Margaret Weis, Ace trade paper-
back, 1995, $12 ISBN 0-441-00253-6. 291 pp.
Review ©1 996 Evelyn Leeper

This is an anthology of seventeen stories based in
some way on Lewis Carroll's Alice 's Adventures in Wonder-
land. Well, I suppose it sounded promising.

I was not encouraged by the fact that the introduc-
tion refers to the original work both as Alice s Adventures in
Wonderland and Alice in Wonderland. It also describes Lewis
Carroll as "the epitome of the proper Victorian gentleman," a
description which I do not believe squares with his penchant
for photographing nude girls. [While we have no access to
his innermost thoughts, his behavior has never been ques-
tioned - e<L] But the real test, of course, is the stories them-
selves.

While it would be expecting too much for the sto-
ries to equal Carroll's, I had hoped they would at least cap-
ture some of the spirit (as did Gilbert Adair's Alice Through
the Needle 's Eye a few years ago). Unfortunately, for the
most part they do not. A couple have as their only connec-
tion the fact that they have a talking Cheshire cat. (In this
they are similar to Thomas Disch and John Sladek's Black
Alice, which had a Tenniel illustration on the cover, but no
connection with the Carroll stories.) Others postulate that
Wonderland is some sort of fantasy world, bearing little re-
semblance to how Carroll described it, or even the afterlife.

And the stories are so downbeat,

filled with child abuse, death, drugs, I

and so on. I know that's real life, but

Wonderland was supposed to be an

escape from real life. Even the stories

that do seem to be set in the "real"

Wonderland are mostly unsatisfying,

their jokes and paradoxes taken straight from Carroll himself.

The one exception to this is Connie Hirsch's "Wonderland

Express," in which Hirsch seems to have come up with new

wordplay of the type Carroll used.

One other story that did work was "A Common
Night" by Bruce Holland Rogers, mostly because Rogers did
a good job imitating Carroll's poetry.

But on the whole, Fantastic Alice is a disappoint-
ment, and I cannot recommended it even (or perhaps espe-
cially) for fans of the Carroll works.

I also have a complaint separate from the contents
of the book. For the reader, a trade paperback should offer
some advantage over a mass-market paperback, and should
certainly not be worse. Yet when I left this book in the car for
only four hours, the cover looked like someone had taken a
curling iron to it. Other companies manage to make trade
paperbacks that avoid this; I would hope Ace would too.

Inventing Wonderland: The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis
Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M.Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and
A.A.Milne by Jackie Wullschlager. The Free Press, 1995, $24.
Review by Dr. Sandor Burstein

For some reason this book seems to have received
favorable notices in many newspapers and magazines. The
author, who writes for the Financial Times of London, pulls
in all the old pseudopsychiatric chestnuts about the Victo-
rian authors' mostly unhappy childhoods, GEdipal losses,
and even the "inner child" in all of us. None of these writers
for children ever grew up, she claims. Frustrated sexuality is
the basis of their creativities, and she continues for 228 pages
which tell us absolutely nothing new.

It wouldn't be so disappointing if she had at least
done a little research. It looks to me as if she hadn't even read
the Alice books, but just skimmed through them looking for
obvious passages to cite in her text. She tells us that Alice in
Wonderland (1) opens as "Alice is about to make a daisy
chain (p.8); (2) opens in a pool of tears (p.26); and (3) "A
flurry of watches and waistcoats and jars of marmalade opens
the book". She has a "duchess (who) becomes a sheep"
(p.45) while a cursory look at the book confirms it was the
White Queen.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pet wombat "Tops", who

used to sleep in the epergne on the table at dinner parties
and awoke to eat left-over cigars, is credited as being the
inspiration for Carroll's dormouse. Strange. Alice was pub-
lished in 1 865 and "Tops" entered the Rossetti household in
1 869 and died shortly thereafter.

These and other sloppy, careless, or just mislead-
ing statements abound. In short, the "facts" are not recorded
accurately, many of the assumptions are completely unjusti-
fied and unwarranted, and the psychological analyses are
amateur and unoriginal at best. I suggest that to read this
book is to waste time, effort, and money.

"Alice in Wonderland: A Ballet Adventure"

Interview ©1 996 Alice Fuld

"A book is not a ballet. Literature and dance achieve
their ends in quite different ways." That's the problem Jose
Mateo confronted in creating a ballet from Lewis Carroll's
Alice in Wonderland.

Mateo, the artistic director of the Ballet Theatre of
Boston, had been thinking about an "Alice" ballet for sev-
eral years, but he could not find a workable narrative line for
his dancers, and he couldn't think of a composer whose music
fit the familiar children's story.

"I finally realized that the various encounters in Alice
are themselves shorter, independent stories," Mateo said.
This approach led to a ten-scene ballet adapted from Carroll's
book with music by different composers. "The dances are
very different from one another, and that called for different
composers."

Mateo chose episodes from Alice in Wonderland
that he felt could be interpreted in dance. He also incorpo-
rated "The Garden of Live Flowers" and "Tweedledum and
Tweedledee" from Through the Looking Glass. "They were
very good subjects for ballet, and I needed them," Mateo
admitted.

As he began to look at other adaptations of Alice,
Mateo discovered that adapters took all kinds of liberties.
"It's difficult to tell how arbitrary the sequence is in Carroll,
but the events almost invariably get shifted around in plays
and films. It made me feel less guilty," Mateo said. "Once I
gave myself that license, I tried to be true to the book, but it's
a different medium with different requirements."

Mateo describes his "Alice in Wonderland" as a
"ballet adventure." He uses music by Prokofiev, Stravinsky,
Ravel, Mozart and Bach, among others. He looked at music
especially for children and at the youthful works of noted
composers, but in the end, Mateo chose music that he felt
described the characters in each scene. "A Mad Tea-Party"
is set to well-organized Mozart because Mateo wanted to
convey the idea of a formal high tea, even though the party is
more than a little askew.

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee" will be accompa-
nied by a movement from a Stravinsky violin concerto. "Some
of it sounds irrational, but it's appropriate," Mateo said, as
the strange twins themselves are not entirely rational either.

Bach accompanies the uproarious trial of the Knave
of Hearts while the Live Flowers waltz to Ravel's "La Valse."

The ballet opens and closes with music by Prokofiev, who
composed "Cinderella" and other traditional story ballets.
"It starts like most ballets, and then it delves into the under-
ground," Mateo said.

Like most readers of Alice in Wonderland, Mateo
saw John Tenniel's original illustrations in his mind's eye,
but he needed to get away from them to come up with his
own ideas. So the abstract sets and costumes for this pro-
duction designed by Roger LaVoie will not reflect the tradi-
tional illustrations.

For example, the royal courtiers in Wonderland are
a pack of cards. Mateo didn't want to conceal dancers be-
neath sandwich boards, which is how the cards appear in
many illustrations. The dancers will wear robes which are not
stiff and sometimes stand sideways in line to resemble a pack
of cards, "but they can dance," Mateo said.

Celebrating Martin Gardner

Review by Fran Abeles and Stan Isaacs

The "Gathering for Gardner H" was held at the el-
egant Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta, GA from January 17 -
21, 1996. This "by invitation only" occasion brought to-
gether magicians, mathematicians and puzzlists from around
the world (about 1 00 altogether.) Everyone had some con-
nection with Martin Gardner, arguably the most highly re-
garded popularizer of mathematics and related endeavors in
the world. Lewis Carroll Society members know Gardner as
the author of The Annotated Alice and The Annotated Snark.
He was also the former editor of the "Mathematical Games"
section of Scientific American where between 1 960 and 1 975
he wrote about recreational mathematics, including many of
Carroll's games and puzzles. This spring St. Martin's Press
will publish The Night Is Large, a book of Gardner's col-
lected essays, including "Lewis Carroll and his Alice Books."

Several events in the packed formal program directly
or indirectly dealt with Carroll. John Conway, a Princeton
University mathematician, spoke about his improvement of
Carroll's rule to find the day of the week for any given date
(The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll, vol. 2, pp. 280-82.) permit-
ting the calculations to be done faster mentally. Binary Arts
Corporation, of Alexandria VA distributed a fascinating mov-
ing-piece puzzle of the Cheshire cat, based on the picture of
Alice looking at the Cheshire Cat. When the three pieces are
arranged one way, she is looking at Jive Cheshire cats; when
the top two pieces are exchanged, she is only looking at four
cats, plus the smile. In his talk about puzzle cards, Jerry Slocum
showed rebus cards reminiscent of the rebus letters Carroll
wrote to child friends.

Perhaps the most dazzling event, one that Carroll
himself would have delighted in, was the after-dinner dem-
onstration by the mathematician Arthur Benjamin of Harvey
Mudd College who was able to multiply two five-digit num-
bers mentally, giving a correct answer ten digits long!

Gardner, now 81, attended the talks, dinners, dem-
onstrations, and magical performances with his wife, Char-
lotte. He appeared delighted and bemused by all the fuss
being made over him.

LCSNA SURVEY

I would classify myself as an:

• academic

• collector

• devotee

• casually interested

I heard about the LCSNA from:

a friend who?

an article in

a publication

which?
the World Wide Web _

an Internet Newsgroup

other specify

My expectations from the Society are to:

hear of new publications

get academic information in the newsletter

keep abreast of new collectibles

have contact and discourse with people with similar interests
other (please elaborate)

Eft

•!

I am currently involved in a Lewis Carroll related project (elaborate)

I would like to be active in LCSNA projects

Meeting programs

Publications
Education _
Collecting _
other (please elaborate)

i \l

'.II '

9

f/»

j ii

I would attend a LCSNA meeting if:

• there was one in my state

• city

• it was a purely social gathering

• pigs could fly (i.e. you're not interested in attending meetings)

• the program was great (for instance)

The Knight Letter should have more , less , current amount of academic content

should have more , less , current amount of collectible information.

should have more , less , current amount of member's personal accounts.

• Other comments

Name (optional)

Please help us in the pleasant struggle to try to understand and please our membership by returning a photocopy of this
completed survey to: Joel Birenbaum, 2765 Shellingham Drive, Lisle, IL 60532. Feel free to take up as much space with
comments as you like!

From Oar Far-pan^

Books

A "New Illustrated Edition" of The Hunt-
ing of the Snark has been produced by
Gavin O'Keefe in Australia. Gavin "has
done all the illustrations in a style like
the best modern fantastic drawing com-
bined with humour, draftsmanship,
imagination and a little horror" -
Dr. S. Burstein. ISBN: 0-646-26543-1 or
write to him at P.O.Box 1272 North
Fitzroy, Victoria 3068, Australia.

For Snark hunters, the Do-It-Yourself
Book of Blank Maps was published by
Willow Spring Press, 1 992.

The Hunting of the Snark: Second Ex-
pedition is a kind of "sequel" to Lewis
Carroll's original. Written by Peter
Wesley-Smith, with illustrations by Paul
Stannish, it can be ordered from Cherry
Books, PO Box 258, Camperdown, NSW
2050, Australia. The poem tells of an-
other nonsensical attempt to find a Snark
and involves a whole new set of char-
acters and situations.

Articles

"The Hunting of the Snark: the moral
status of the embryos, right-to-lifers,
and third world women" by Alta R.
Charo, Stanford Law and Policy Re-
view, 1995, vol. 6, no.2.

"Alice in Cyberspace" was published
in Colorado Business Magazine, Aug.
1995, vol. 22, no. 8.

"Conflict in the Classroom: Wonderland
Welcomes Alice", Journal of Legal
Studies Education, vol. 13, no. 2.

A long article on David Del Tredici en-
titled "A Composer Who Finds Lasting
Inspiration in Alice in Wonderland'
appeared in the Long Island Supplement
to the New York Times 3/3/96.

Holistic Nursing Practice, vol. 1 0 no.
1, October 1995, discusses "AIDS and
Nursing Care: Toward the Year 2000"
and ends with an Epilogue whose
theme, "interpretative paradigms for
understanding life-threatening illnesses
could emerge from childhood readings"

includes an allegorical case study of a
mother and her HIV+ son using the two
Alice books as an example.

Disney's 1992 "Adventures in Wonder-
land" series, based on the television
show, contains the volume White Rab-
bits Can 'tJump. On page 30, the White
Rabbit addresses O.J. Simpson and ut-
ters the fascinating line "Hey, wait a
minute! You can't be in two places at
once!"

Cyberspace

Those of us who missed the English
National Ballet's performances of Alice,
can relive it virtually at http://www.en-
ballet.co.uk/ballets/alice/.

Any "42" collectors would be well ad-
vised to visit http://www.empirenet.
com/~dljones/index.html, devoted to
sightings of Our Favorite Number in lit-
erature, pop culture, and so on.

Art and Artifacts

Delia's Winter '95 catalog shows a red
on black "Wonderland Dress" on its
cover. $48. Write to 435 Hudson St, New
York NY 10014 or call 1.800.335.4269.

A full color, hand silk-screened 1 0" x 5"
Cheshire Cat beanbag is available for
$15 from "Cats, Cats & More Cats",
Route 17M, P.O.Box 270, Monroe, NY
10950.914.782.4141.

The Danna Michaels catalog offers two
garden sculptures of cast stone featur-
ing the Queen of Hearts ( 1 2" x 9") and a
Cheshire Cat planter (5" x 12"). They
each cost $49.95. 1.800.944.4384.

"Lewis Carroll Garnet Earrings" whose
"looking-glass shape brings this Victo-
rian writer to mind" - $49 gold plated or
$149 in 14k gold from the Museum of
Jewelry catalog. 300 Larkin St., San Fran-
cisco, C A 94 109. 1.800.835.2700.

Expatriate sculptor Harry Marinsky is
creating a series of eight quite lifelike

Correspondents

Alice sculptures which will be exhibited
in his home town of Pietrasanta, Italy
(4/20-6/1 6) before finding their perma-
nent home in a specially created garden
in the Museum of Outdoor Art in
Englewood, Colorado sometime next
year.

There is a miniature company (a com-
pany that makes miniatures, that is)
called Hantel Victorian Miniatures that
includes in their product line a selec-
tion of Alice figurines "meticulously
modeled after Sir John Tenniel's origi-
nal drawings, of solid pewter and hand-
painted" and priced about £15 to £25.
Their address is: Bruiach House,
Kiltarlity, by Beauly, Iverness-shire, IV4
7HG, Scotland, UK. Telephone 01463
741297, fax01463 741483.

Audio and Video

Alice in Wonderland: a Dance Fantasy
featuring the Prague Chamber Ballet and
the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with
Viktor Kalabic conducting his own mu-
sic is a waste of 27 minutes of video-
tape. Described as a children's perfor-
mance "interweaving ballet, mime, ac-
robatics, and theater", it is in reality a
high-school level mishmash of stilted
choreography, people running about
aimlessly, and music which is third-rate
Janacek. Nice costumes, though.
V.I.E. W. Video, 34 E.23rd St, New York
NY 10010.

Alice of Wonderland in Paris V-419-1
VHS COL 52 min Stories by Ludwig
Bemelmans, Crockett Johnson, James
Thurber and Eve Titus. Episodic ani-
mated film of Alice, who dreams of go-
ing to Paris, and Francois, the mouse,
who is conducting a cheese survey. Sto-
ries include "Madeline and the Bad Hat"
by Ludwig Bemelmans, "Anatole" by
Eve Titus and "Many Moons" by
James Thurber. Deitch, Gene, 1965.

Boojum! is a musical, first performed at
the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1 986
before Her Majesty the Queen, written
by Martin Wesley-Smith (book and
music) and Peter Wesley-Smith (book

Far-flung, continued from p. 1 1

and lyrics). It is sub-titled "Nonsense,
Truth and Lewis Carroll" and is an at-
tempt to explore aspects of Carroll's (or
Dodgson's) personality through his
ideas and characters. In its present ver-
sion (as performed in San Diego and
Pasadena) it is suitable for choir and
soloists, either with staging effects or
in a concert version.
For inquiries, contact Martin Wesley-
Smith, 22 Ryan Street, Lilyfield, NSA
2040, Australia; tel (61 2) 810 2238; fax
(612)2303747.

To order the double CD of the show,
performed by the Sydney Philarmonia
Motet Choir, contact Vox Australia, PO
Box N690, Grosvenor Place, Sydney,
NSW 2000, Australia.

Places and Events

The biggest crowd-pleasers in the Rose
Bowl Parade included a "flirtatious
Humpty Dumpty" and the float that won
the Sweepstakes Trophy for most beau-
tiful commercial entry was "Tea with
Friends {Alice in Wonderland)" by Flo-
rists Transworld Delivery.

The College of Mt. St. Vincent's Library
Gallery in Riverdale NY had an exhibi-
tion of quilts which "portray the politi-
cal 'wonderland' of Washington DC by
juxtaposing Sir John Tenniel's illustra-
tions of the Lewis Carroll fantasy with
images of the President and other D.C.
icons." Ran through February 2.

The Boston Harbor Hotel presented
"Tea with Alice in Wonderland" on Sat-
urdays from January 13 -March 2.
"Gentle tidbits of etiquette are combined
with a proper tea service" featuring nine
costumed characters.

The Showcase Theatre (The Masque
Unit, Junior Theater of Marin) performed
"Dorothy Meets Alice, or The Wizard
of Wonderland" from March 19-22 at in
the Marin Center (San Rafael, CA).
"Two of literature's most unforgettable
young ladies get mixed up together in a
magical, musical meeting that produces
hilarious results. The fun filled romp
follows Alice and Dorothy and their
well-known coteries as they attempt to
unscramble their stories with the help
of a contemporary lad ."

Macy's 22nd annual flower show (Her-
ald Square, New York, 3/31-4/13), de-
scribed as "265,000 square feet of blos-
soms" displayed "Wonderland in the
Windows: a floral fantasy inspired by
the famed character illustrations of John
Tenniel. . .As a special enhancement, the
music of composer David Del Tredici's
opera Final Alice fills the springtime air.
High above Herald Square, a jolly 25-
foot tall Humpty Dumpty celebrates
Spring as he teeters atop our Broadway
marquee." There were readings, char-
acter impersonations, and television
coverage (ABC) as well.

The Chicago Children's Theater is per-
forming Alice in Wonderland: A Musi-
cal Circus. March 26 - April 21 at the
Diller Street Theater, 3 1 0 Green Bay Rd.
Winnetka, IL. The show will reopen May
15-17 at the Skyline Stage, Navy Pier,
Chicago, IL (call 3 1 2-262-9848 for reser-
vations and information).

The Missoula Children's Theatre is a
traveling troupe which will tour over 600
communities this season, integrating
their directors and actors with local chil-
dren. One of their 19 "original musicals"
is a production of Alice in Wonderland.

We found out about it through a perfor-
mance in El Paso, Texas, featuring Brit-
tany Matthews as Alice. Contact Jim
Caron at 200 North Adams St., Missoula
MT 59802-471 8 or 406.728. 1 91 1 .

Visitors to Monterey and Carmel, Cali-
fornia, might wish to stay at the
Jabberwock, a "country inn" whose
rooms are named after Jabberwock crea-
tures and contain the Alice books where
one might expect Gideon Bibles. 598
Laine Street, Monterey CA 93940, Jim
and Barbara Allen at 408.372.4777. Not
extensively Alician, but a friendly place
tostay.$100-185/night.

The Seattle Children's Theater is per-
forming A lice in Wonderland. It opened
April 9, and plays through June 9 at the
Charlotte Martin Theater.

The Children's Museum of Eastern Or-
egon, located in Pendleton, Oregon, will
include an exhibit on Alice 's Adventures
in Wonderland when it opens in July,
1 996. The interactive exhibit will feature
Tenniel's illustrations (colorized) with
appropriate quotes for each character,
as well as three-dimensional renderings
of the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat.
An Ames distorted room will be a cen-
terpiece, where children can simulate the
shrinking and growing that Alice expe-
rienced. There will be giant chess pieces
that children can move on the checker-
board floor. Alice will be climbing
through the looking glass, where chil-
dren can try their hands at mirror writ-
ing. Chess puzzles, line puzzles, optical
illusions, and riddles will be offered. A
segment will feature the different types
of poetry found in the Alice books
(shaped, acrostic, parody, and non-
sense).

For help in preparing this issue thanks are due to: Fran Abeles, Leslie Allen, Carolyn Buck, Sandor Burstein, Morton
Cohen, Elizabeth Erickson, Alice Fuld, Johanna Hurwitz, Stan Isaacs, Vito Lanza, August Imholtz, and Lucille Posner.

Knight Letter is the official newsletter of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. It is published several times a year
and is distributed free to all members. Subscriptions, business correspondence, and inquiries should be addressed to
the Secretary, 18 Fitzharding Place, Owing Mills MD 21117. Annual membership dues are U.S. $20 (regular) and $50
(sustaining). Submissions and editorial correspondence should be sent to the Editor, Box 2006, Mill Valley CA 94942.
President: Joel Birenbaum, jmb7@ihlpm.att.com Secretary: Ellie Luchinsky, eluchin@epfl 1 .epflbalto.org

Editor: Mark Burstein, wrabbit@worldpassage.net
Lewis Carroll Society of North America Home Page: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~jbirenba/lcsnahp.html
The Lewis Carroll Home Page: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~jbirenba/carroll.html